I guess some people are noticing that we're seeing a spike in vigilante violence on the border, largely associated with white "Minuteman" patrols. Rep. Pete Stark fired back at one of the Minutemen at a public meeting last week, and it stirred Glenn Beck's ire:
REP. PETE STARK (D-CA): The Minutemen want to have something to say? Who are you going kill today?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Who are we going to kill today?
STARK: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I would just like to know — actually, American citizens are being killed right now. That's what's going on.
STARK: That's right.
This really set Beck off:
Let me just clear up a few of the stark raving lies here. Even though Stark has some sort of minutemen shoot everybody on sight smear campaign going on, the fact is there has never been a border shooting involving a Minuteman, not one! Zero! None!
No violent episodes from the Minutemen. I mean, this guy doesn't let a single fact get in his way.
We have a "single fact" or two for Glenn Beck, though, that might kind of get the way of his claim.
Indeed, we'd like Glenn Beck to meet someone.
Her name was Brisenia Flores. She was nine years old and lived near the border with her parents and sister outside the town of Arivaca, Arizona. On May 30 of last year, a woman named Shawna Forde, who led an offshoot unit of Minutemen who ran armed border patrols for patriotic "fun". Forde's gang had decided to go "operational," which meant they concocted a scheme to raid drug smugglers and take their money and drugs and use it to finance a border race war and "start a revolution against the government". They mistakenly chose the Flores home, which had neither money nor drugs; first they shot the father in the head and wounded the mother, and then, while she pleaded for her life, they shot Brisenia in cold blood. (Her sister, fortunately, was sleeping over at a friend's.)
You can listen to the wounded mother's 911 call here:
It's not as if Shawna Forde was a renegade Minuteman, either, though she did run an offshoot (which is how the majority of Minutemen are organizing these days, the large national organizations having gone kaput). Indeed, Forde served as a spokesperson for FAIR and was closely involved with Minutemen leader Jim Gilchrist right up to the time of her arrest. (In fact, we're going to learn at her trial this fall just how close -- including whether or not Gilchrist tipped her off that federal authorities were looking for her).
That's just one incident. Others are beginning to manifest themselves even now.
Maybe if Glenn Beck were a little better informed about just what his pet Minutemen have been up to, he might avoid these kinds of mistakes. But we doubt it.
